


Patching Up

by randomwriter57



Series: Reigisa Week 2018 [4]
Category: Free!
Genre: Children, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Meet-Cute, No romance here guys, Pre-Relationship, as in they are the children here, because apparently i love fics where the characters are children????, er kind of, just reiterating that, the pure beginnings of a friendship which may later turn into something more...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 05:20:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13404306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomwriter57/pseuds/randomwriter57
Summary: Even at the tender age of ten, Rei considers himself mature.Why is it then, he wonders, that he loses his cool in a situation like this?





	Patching Up

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I really like writing about characters when they're children??? Like, before all the drama of teenage life and relationships and everything, just writing about the times when they're allowed to just be kids. This fic is about that kind of thing, I guess?
> 
> Written for [Reigisa Week 2018](http://reigisaweek.tumblr.com), Day Four: Children.

Even at the tender age of ten, Rei considers himself mature. He’s old enough to walk to and from school on his own, to make his own bento up the night before, and he even knows a whole bunch about subjects which his classmates know nothing about. If he were to be put in charge of the kids in his class, he thinks he would be able to handle the situation with relative ease.

Why is it then, he wonders, that he loses his cool in a situation like this?

He looks around himself anxiously, hardly able to see anything for the countless people walking around the fairground. Though the area is not all that large to an adult, to Rei it looks infinitely huge. All around him are stands and attractions for the masses of people here, filled with bright lights and loud voices. The intensity of the situation makes his hands shake, and he clutches the edge of his jacket to give them something else to do.

Weakly, he calls out for his parents, but neither of them appear. Not even his reliable older brother seems to have noticed his absence. Perhaps he’ll never find them, and he’ll be lost in a sea of strangers forever.

That won’t happen, though. After all, the mature Rei knows that there is no way his parents could forget about him entirely. Soon they’ll notice his absence, and they will look for him.

For now, he decides it would be best to stay around here. That way, if they remember where they last saw him, it should lead them here.

Rei nods to himself, approving his plan.

Since he has time, of course, he needs to find a way to spend it. He could look at the stalls around here, but his mother has his pocket money in her purse, so he wouldn’t be able to buy anything. Another alternative is to sit down somewhere, but he can’t see a single place in sight. Not that he can see much, for all the people around him.

Well, so be it. There is nothing he can do but wait.

Just as he resigns himself to this, a loud noise comes from behind him. He turns around and gulps at the sight of a rather small dog baring its teeth at him. It barks again.

Rei takes no notice of the dog’s owner trying to tug it away by the leash. Instead he backs away hurriedly, not looking where he’s going because all that matters in this moment is his fight-or-flight instinct urging him to _get away_ -

He stumbles.

Turning mid-fall is the worst thing he could do, and yet he does so anyway. He falls flat on his face, his glasses making a loud crack noise as they hit off of a large stone. Pain stings in his palms and his knees where he must have grazed the skin, but nothing compares to the horror he feels when he lifts his head, only for his glasses to slip off, the two halves separated cleanly at the bridge.

This couldn’t possibly get any worse.

He pushes himself onto his knees, grimacing at the stinging sensation he feels. A few tiny stones fall from where they’ve lodged themselves in his palms, and he brushes the rest away from the irritated skin. Only once his hands are clean does he pick up his destroyed glasses, wincing at the damage. Though the lenses are intact, the frame has broken at the bridge. At this point, there’s nothing he can do but get a new pair.

But that will take time. For now, his vision is blurry, with only closer objects showing up clearly in his vision.

That might be why he doesn’t see the boy coming until a hand appears in his clearer vision.

“Are you okay?” the boy asks, eyes wide with concern. They’re a curious colour, bright pink and shining in the lights.

Rei accepts the boy’s hand and stands up, clutching his glasses in his other hand. “I’m okay, I just fell.”

The boy looks him up and down before saying, “You’re hurt!”

“It’s only a couple of scrapes.”

But the boy isn’t listening. Instead he searches through his pockets until he brings out a small colourful box which Rei cannot see clearly from this distance. The boy holds it up with a grin. “I have plasters! Let me help patch you up!”

Though he would usually rather not have to accept help like this - he’s a big boy now, he can handle a skinned knee - he ends up nodding regardless. His knees do hurt, after all.

His expression brightening, the boy pulls Rei by the hand through the crowd towards a bench which Rei didn’t see before thanks to the crowd of people. The two sit down together, and the boy turns to Rei.

“Let me see your knees!”

Rei puts his feet up on the bench and pulls up his trouser legs to reveal the red skin of his knees. The boy fishes a tissue from inside his pocket and dabs the dirt away from the wounds, far more carefully than Rei expects him to. Once he finishes cleaning it, he pulls out a plaster from inside the colourful box, peeling the papers off of it before sticking it on Rei’s knee. Now that Rei can see it more closely, he notices that the plasters are yellow with cartoon animals on them. On his left knee is a penguin, and the boy pastes a butterfly on his right.

“Are your hands okay?” the boy asks once Rei has his feet back on the ground, plasters covered by his trousers once more.

Rei nods. “They should be okay. Thank you.”

The boy doesn’t seem to hear him, however. His focus is on Rei’s hands now, or rather, on what he’s holding. “You broke your glasses?”

“Yeah,” Rei says. “It happened when I fell.”

“Do you think we can put them back together with plasters?” the boy says, holding up the box again. “Just until you can get home!”

The idea of doing such a thing goes strictly against his already-formed vision of beauty and aesthetics - even tape would be an awful addition to glasses, never mind bright yellow plasters on red frames. Still, he has to be more appreciative of what this boy is trying to do by helping him. At least he’ll be able to see if the glasses can be put back together.

And so, reluctantly, he agrees to let the boy work his magic on the glasses, too.

A few minutes and plasters later, Rei finally puts his glasses back on, grimacing at how off-balance they feel with the bulge of plasters on the bridge and the weight of each side tilting away from the centre. Now he can see the boy, however, and he finds himself even more intrigued - the boy’s eyes are even prettier than before, when he couldn’t see them properly. His bird’s nest of golden curls also suits him to a T. He looks younger than Rei, with chubby cheeks and a childish smile.

“Looks great!” the boy says, giving him a thumbs-up.

Rei knows he’s only trying to make him feel better, and he tries to smile a bit so as not to hurt his feelings. “Thanks for the help, uh…”

It is only now that he realises that, this entire time, neither of them has introduced himself. Internally, he berates himself on his lack of manners.

The boy gets to the introductions before he does, however.

“I’m Nagisa!” he says, his smile brighter than the festival lights. “What’s your name?”

“Ryugazaki Rei,” he replies. “It’s nice to meet you, Nagisa-kun.”

“And you too, Rei-chan!”

Just as this exchange happens, Rei hears a familiar voice calling his name. Turning his head, he sees his parents approaching them with expressions of mixed concern and relief. His brother is with them too, smiling in a way that indicates that Rei is sure to get teased about his glasses.

“Well, it mas nice meeting you,” Nagisa says, standing up. “See ya later!”

Before Rei can say anything in return, the blond runs off, leaving him alone, with only his broken glasses and the bright yellow plasters to serve as a reminder to the events of that evening.

 

 

(And if, years later, Rei finds those glasses in a drawer, the plasters still holding each half together, the nostalgic smile he wears will be enough to think that, in hindsight, maybe getting lost isn’t quite so bad after all.)

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me at [randomactuallywrites-57](http://randomactuallywrites-57.tumblr.com) on tumblr | [@randomwriter57](http://twitter.com/randomwriter57) on twitter!


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